Speaking to Corriere della Sera after her daughter Larissa Iachipino came fourth in her old event at the Paris Olympics, May said “Italy has gone backwards 20 years”.
“Twenty years ago, there wasn’t all this racism,” she claimed.
“Or perhaps it’s simply that there wasn’t social media then. Some people are saying on social media that Larissa isn’t Italian.
“How can they do that?”
Slough-born, Derby-raised May, 54, who has Jamaican parents, had her 22-year-old daughter with her former coach and ex-husband, former Italian pole vault champion Gianni Iapichino.
“The issue is the colour of your skin. Which really shouldn’t be a problem. Even more so in sport,” said May.
“The French national football team is almost exclusively made up of blacks. Coaches go looking for them in the street, they include them, they involve them.
“The same thing happens in England. The Belgian national team’s centre forward for the last 10 years has been Romelu Lukaku.
“Why aren’t there any blacks in the national (football) team in Italy?”
Asked if Italy was a racist country, the two time world champ and Olympic silver medallist responded, “I’m saying that Italy is going backwards instead of going forwards.”
“There’s something, in the country’s subconscious...
“I also don’t like it when the TV commentators say Larissa has an Italian dad, but the mum, on the other hand ... I competed all my life in the Italian national colours.”
Iapichino, who won silver at the recent European championships in Rome, said that she had been “stupid” in her approach to this competition, which was won by America’s Tara Davis-Woodhall.
ANSA
